What is Pro Tools?

Pro Tools redefined the music, film, and TV industry, providing everything you need to compose, record, edit, and mix music and audio. Create without bounds and work at the speed of your creativity, so you can take on the most demanding sessions and deliver the best sounding mixes possible.

And now Pro Tools 12 sets the stage for Avid Cloud Collaboration, the upcoming Avid Marketplace, and flexible licensing options, so you can access the industry standard in more affordable ways than ever. Create with a low-cost subscription. Own the software or a complete system outright. Or get started with Pro Tools | First, a free version of Pro Tools. The choice is yours.

New features

Get easy access to the audio industry's most trusted tool

The latest version of Pro Tools is now more easily and affordably accessible than ever. In addition to the software being available to own and upgrade as before, you can now subscribe to Pro Tools software on a low-cost monthly or annual basis, enabling you to pay only for the software when you need it. And you’ll always have access to the latest updates, upgrades, and support through the included Avid upgrade and support plan. Plus, when updates are available, you can get them delivered to you straight from the cloud. Or if you’re new to music and audio creation, get your feet wet with Pro Tools | First—a free version of Pro Tools that offers a basic set of music creation features to help you get started in the world of Pro Tools.

Stay current, stay ahead

All Pro Tools purchases, upgrades, and subscriptions now come with an Avid upgrade and support plan that ensures you always have the latest features at your fingertips. This means that you'll get all future software updates and upgrades (as long as your plan is active), including the upcoming Pro Tools Cloud and other features mentioned below, and 24x7 access to our Customer Care team experts to get help and advice whenever, wherever, and however you need it.

Collaborate in the cloud—coming soon

Imagine being able to work on a session with friends, bandmates, colleagues, or even your favorite artist, producer, editor, or voice actor—no matter where they are, anywhere in the world. That’s what’s coming with Avid Cloud Collaboration for Pro Tools, a groundbreaking new set of features that will enable you to compose, record, edit, and mix sessions collaboratively with other Pro Tools users as if you’re all working together in the same studio. Simply invite any of your available connections to collaborate using built-in chat, or find new collaborators through the online Artist Community, part of the Avid Marketplace.

Connect in the Avid Marketplace—coming soon

Gain the exposure you need to promote and sell your work. With the Artist Community, part of the upcoming Avid Marketplace, you’ll be able to publish session files, multichannel stems, and stereo mixdowns directly from Pro Tools for license in the public marketplace. Unlike social music sites that simply allow you to share and promote your music, the Avid Marketplace is designed to help you forge more meaningful connections with the audio community, enabling you to connect with other media professionals to share, collaborate, promote, and sell your work—publicly or privately. This puts the power in your hands to make connections and create new opportunities.

Access your work anywhere—coming soon

Forget about having to comb through multiple hard drives to find past projects that you want to remix, repurpose, or remaster. With our upcoming audio archival service, you’ll be able to store content and track it, whether you store a session locally or in the cloud. Archive a stereo mix, the full session, individual stems, or even flatten all tracks so that the original plug-ins used to create them aren’t required. And with our new cloud storage service, you’ll be able to house and access archived sessions and files—plus all sessions, stems, and stereo mixes you make available in the Marketplace—securely from anywhere.

Manage and track your assets—coming soon

We’ll be introducing and integrating a new open, universal metadata schema into Pro Tools that will help you manage, track, and document every asset and project you create. This metadata will enable media creators and distributors to keep track of everyone who creatively contributed to a piece of content, making it easy to document who did what, when, and where; manage and control versioning; and provide accurate credit information so that you have a better chance of getting paid for your work—and getting hired for future projects.

Get early access to Avid Cloud Collaboration for Pro Tools—sign up now

Help us make Cloud Collaboration, the Avid Marketplace, and other upcoming Pro Tools features the best they can be. Sign up for an opportunity to start using these features before they’re available to the public—get the details here.

Record and Compose

Get top-quality sound and performance with Avid hardware

Whether you’re tracking vocals, guitars, or an orchestra, you’ll get the best possible sound and optimized performance when you pair Pro Tools with an Avid audio interface. Record high-resolution audio—up to 32-bit/192 kHz—and experience exceptionally low latency to capture your best performances easily.

Experience more power and performance

With the redesigned Avid Audio Engine and 64-bit performance, you get multiple times the processing power of previous versions of Pro Tools on the same hardware configurations. Add epic numbers of virtual instruments and effects to create bigger, richer sounding, and more complex mixes.

Loop and punch your way to perfection

Nobody’s perfect, but with Pro Tools you can create a seamless performance from multiple takes. Let your spontaneity shine with Loop recording and comp together your best takes. Or use QuickPunch to quickly replace any questionable section with a better performance.

No instrument? No problem.

Easily create parts for practically any musical instrument using great-sounding virtual instruments, a MIDI keyboard/controller or your mouse, and the built-in Pro Tools MIDI Editor. Get started fast with the included virtual instruments and audio loops, and expand your arsenal with AAX virtual instruments from Avid and third-party audio designers.

Compose with full MIDI and notation tools

Take your songwriting from sketchpad to final production. Create and edit virtual instrument and MIDI performances with the MIDI Editor. Or compose music using notation tools in the built-in Sibelius Score Editor. You can even export sessions as Sibelius (.sib) files for further finessing in Sibelius.

Work and collaborate on projects from other apps

Collaboration has never been easier. With Pro Tools, you can exchange sessions with any Pro Tools user or studio. Or work on projects created in other audio and video software—including Media Composer, Logic, Cubase, and other third-party apps—right in Pro Tools.

Edit

Stretch your creativity with Elastic
Time and Pitch

Freely experiment without the time or effort investment. With Elastic Time, you can change the tempo or timing of any clip or an entire composition—on the fly. And with Elastic Pitch, you can fix wrong notes, create harmonies, and transpose clips—in real time—without altering the tempo.

Edit with precision

Shape and fine-tune your music and audio with professional, sample-accurate editing tools. Create a flawless performance by comping together tracks. Speed up editing and mixingClip Gain with the Smart Tool. And smooth transitions with crossfades. Everything you need to perfect your tracks is available right from within a single Edit window.

Snoop out grooves with multitrack Beat Detective

With the versatile Beat Detective tool, you can quickly fix timing issues across multiple tracks or change up the feel of a beat to get a different groove. You can even use it to keep your rhythm section “in the pocket” by extracting the groove from a drumbeat and applying it to the bass part.

Create and cut sound to picture

With Pro Tools, you can create, edit, and mix audio to picture using the built-in Timecode Ruler and video track. Use the included plug-ins to clean up sound. Create sound effects that define (or defy) reality. Work easily with AudioSuite-rendered clips. And record and edit voiceovers, Foley, and ADR with perfect frame accuracy. You can even share audio mixes with Media Composer editors through AAF.

Play HD video with the Avid Video Engine

With the built-in Avid Video Engine—the same core engine as in Media Composer | Software—you can add and play a variety of HD video formats (such as QuickTime, XDCAM, and more) and Avid DNxHD sequences directly in the Pro Tools timeline—without transcoding. Plus, you can monitor the picture playback using video interfaces from Avid, AJA, and Blackmagic Design.

Mix

Get the sound you want

Polish mixes with over 60 included effects, sound-processing and utility plug-ins. From high-quality reverbs, EQs, and compressors, to guitar amp emulators, surround sound fold-down, and channel strip dynamics, you have everything you need to create professional mixes. Want more? Browse the in-app Avid Marketplace to find the AAX plug-ins you need.

Grab control of your mix

You can use a mouse to make changes one… at… a… time, or mix faster and easier using a hardware control surface. Get hands-on Pro Tools control with a choice of Avid Pro Mixing control surfaces and consoles, plus third-party boards.

Collaborate, store, and share mixes

Whether you've got a work in progress or a finished piece, Pro Tools makes it easy to share. With direct SoundCloud support, you can share files privately with other collaborators, or share finished projects with the world. And bounce mixes to your iTunes library to share with others on your network.

Achieve the best mixes possible—automatically

Get great sounding, phase-accurate mixes with Automatic Delay Compensation— with 4x the samples (16,383) to handle the largest mixes—no matter how many plug-ins you use. Plus, you can automate the settings of every element in the Pro Tools environment to add life to tracks and achieve the best mix possible.

Plug into legendary sound

Add life to your mix. With the included Avid Channel Strip plug-in, you get exact replications of the renowned EQ and compression algorithms of the Avid System 5—one of the most sought-after digital audio consoles used to create some of the greatest mixes ever produced.

Speed up delivery with offline bounce

Wait no longer... With faster-than-real-time offline bounce, you can speed up your final mix or stem deliveries—at up to 150x faster—and get the high-quality results you’d expect only from Pro Tools, thanks to time-stamped automation. If you mix and deliver radio programs or other long-format shows, this feature alone will save you hours of time—daily. And with Pro Tools | HD, you can even bounce multiple stems simultaneously.

Pro Tools | HD software

Get all of the same benefits of Pro Tools software along with these additional features and workflows. (Please note that Pro Tools HD software is available only as part of a Pro Tools | HD family purchase or software upgrade.)

Mix in stereo or surround

With Pro Tools | HD, you can mix in everything from mono up to 7.1 surround sound or Dolby Atmos. Build up your sonic landscape and add movement to your mix with the built-in surround panner. Work with groups of tracks faster and easier with VCA Group mixing.

Go bigger with more tracks

Create way bigger mixes using Pro Tools | HD than you can with Pro Tools. With a 3-card Pro Tools | HDX system, you can work with up to 768 voiceable audio tracks. Or get up to 256 voiceable audio tracks on a Pro Tools | HD Native system or with just Pro Tools | HD software on its own.

Get top-quality sound and performance with Avid hardware

Because Pro Tools | HD is designed and optimized to be part of an integrated hardware/software solution, you can capture audio in pristine clarity with near-zero latency. Even when mixing large, complex projects, you’ll experience uncompromised performance—on a Pro Tools | HDX DSP-powered system or on the host with Pro Tools | HD Native.

Experience maximum performance

With the extended disk cache, which loads entire sessions into RAM, you'll experience smooth performance and highly responsive recording and playback—no matter how monster-sized the session.

Record and edit with advanced audio tools

Record solo tracks in PFL (pre-fader listen) or AFL (after-fader listen) mode. Work more efficiently when punching performances with TrackPunch and DestructivePunch. Enhance and speed up editing tasks with Continuous Scrolling, Scrub Trim tool, Replace Clip command, Time Compression and Expansion Edit to Timeline Selection command, field recorder workflows, and more.

Mix with confidence using extended metering

Forget having to invest in additional plug-ins to get K-system, VU, and other professional metering standards. You now have 17 metering options built right into the interface, enabling you to optimize your mix while adhering to regional broadcast audio regulations. What’s more, you also get gain reduction metering on every channel to gauge dynamics.

Accelerate mixing with advanced automation

With advanced automation tools, you can create the best sounding mixes possible quickly. From VCA masters to Preview mode, Capture mode, and more, you have the tools you need to automate mixes and audition, compare, and apply changes in a variety of ways to tackle even the largest, most complex sessions with ease.

Get more control

With Pro Tools | HD, you've got unprecedented control at your fingertips. Handle the largest audio post mixes with the built-in Satellite Link, which enables you to connect up to 12 Pro Tools | HD-based systems and control them from one. And get the highest level of hands-on control by adding a Pro Tools | S6 surface to your setup.